Sept 5 – 27, 2024
We’re excited to welcome SJ Kirsch as a SUM-AiR artist-in-residence from September 5 – 27, 2024. SJ will use this residency to expand their fluency in a number software programs, providing the foundation of their multimedia, interdisciplinary project, Enbian Love Songs: experiential odes for the liminally-inclined. This site-specific project will explore liminality as a safe space through community sound gatherings, installation, and performances.
ABOUT
An accomplished interpreter of western art music, SJ Kirsch (they/she) has performed across Canada, in Europe and West Asia as a soloist and collaborator. They have been hailed as “…one of the finest contemporary dramatic vocalists in Canada today,” (Calgary Herald) “…with the ability to get under the skin of everything she sings,” (Winnipeg Free Press).
Beyond opera and oratorio, SJ curates and produces sociopolitically relevant art song experiences of works from the last three centuries. An avid and capable interpreter of new music, they have premiered more than 30 new works for voice by Canadian composers. Chorally, SJ currently serves as a section leader for the Vancouver Bach Choir family and will join the ranks of Musica Intima for the 2022-23 season.
As a creator/composer, SJ weaves electroacoustic tapestries inspired by the primally physical nature of resonance. As a pundit, they lecture on the ins and outs of western art music, wholistic programming, and vocal liberation for cultural and educational institutions, on podcasts, and on CiTR 101.9 FM. As a pedagog, they keep a small studio of private students from around the world.
SJ earned their BMus at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Music and MMus from the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music. They are also a laureate of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition and have received project and commissioning support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Winnipeg Arts Council, the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg and many generous individuals for whom they are deeply grateful.